Friday, March 6, 2009

IPL commissioner Lalit Modi on Friday said that a new schedule will be worked out for the second edition of the tournament and that there was no question of hosting it in any foreign country.Speaking to reporters here after a meeting of the IPL governing council, Modi said, "We are extremely grateful and thankful to Home Minister (P Chidambaram) that security will be provided for IPL matches. We will shortly have a new schedule out. The IPL is on."Chidambaram had earlier in the day told reporters in Hyderabad that India was safe enough to host cricket tournaments and that the government will provide security provided the tournament's schedule is re-worked to ensure that they do not overlap with the election dates.Modi said that as many as 14 cities were available for hosting the matches and the IPL governing council will shortlist eight from this list.Nagpur has been confirmed as one of the venues and it will host games for Mumbai Indians. The opening ceremony and the first game of the second season of the IPL has been shifted to Mumbai from Jaipur.He also rubbished reports that had earlier in the day indicated that the IPL commissioner had decided to move the tournament to another country."There have been lots of speculation, please discount those speculations. We are working through the schedule. It is a cumbersome process."There will be no matches in the cities on the day they go to polls and there will be no matches on the day of the counting (May 16) at all," he added.The IPL commissioner also said that the number of days for the tournament will remain the same and that there was no reservation about security."There is no reservation about security, we will have a detailed security briefing next week," he said.